


Tonight's for fighting

by crookedspoon



Series: [1mw] Weekend Feeling [59]
Category: DCU
Genre: Angst, Bitterness, Cheating, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, POV Jason Todd, Phone Calls & Telephones, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 08:43:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17342234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: Jason could avoid this conversation if he really wanted to – it may not even be his place to have it anyway – but he knows from experience how silences fester, how they make clearing the air difficult, if not impossible.





	Tonight's for fighting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LuthienLuinwe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuthienLuinwe/gifts).



> For the prompt "I thought you'd want to know" from 1mw's [weekend challenge](https://1-million-words.livejournal.com/2619318.html?thread=22668214#t22668214). Originally combined with the prompt "Hungover" from slashthedrabble, but then it got too long for 500 words, whoops.
> 
> Many thanks to [LuthienLuinwe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuthienLuinwe) for the idea and [Volavi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volavi) for the excellent beta. All remaining idiocies are my own.

Jason's heartbeat is pulsing in his throat as the line rings, and if his stomach weren't empty, he'd probably be evacuating it right about now. He could avoid this conversation if he really wanted to – it may not even be his place to have it anyway – but he knows from experience how silences fester, how they make clearing the air difficult, if not impossible.

He wants to get it out while he still can, while he still _dares,_ while it's still his decision, even if it's a bullshit one. Who knows what circumstances might prevent him from speaking five minutes from now?

 _"Hey, Little Wing, what's up?"_ Dick, being his usual chipper self, sounds happy to hear from him, if cautiously so. Somewhat belatedly, Jason realizes that Dick must be swallowing down the instinctive dread that comes with expecting bad news. Three out of four calls Jason makes are during emergencies, when he needs backup or extraction and medical attention, and even then only when he couldn't reach Roy before. _"Everything all right? Is Roy still with you?"_

Jason glances at the figure next to him, passed out in a drunken stupor, and grimaces. "That's why I'm calling."

_"Did something happen?"_

A fresh wave of nausea washes over Jason. It's now or never. "You could say that."

 _"Where are you now? I'm coming over."_ There's rustling at the other end of the line and Jason imagines Dick throwing on some clothes.

"It's not like that."

_"Then what is it? Don't beat around the bush like that. I'm crawling out of my skin here."_

"Roy's with me. We're safe. Don't worry about _that."_

Dick huffs and tries for levity, as he always does when he's trying to calm his nerves. _"You make it sound like there's something else I should be worrying about."_

"The worrying part's up to you." Jason swallows. "Though personally I think it's too late for that."

 _"Jason."_ Dick says his name with a finality that permits no more prevarications.

This isn't easy for him either. He has a million more words on his tongue to express his hesitation and to delay the inevitable – the very reason he's calling in the first place. It had been easier in his mind, when he didn't have Dick's voice in his ear, giving his reactions in real time.

Jason takes a deep breath, to steel himself if nothing else.

"I slept with Roy."

He doesn't expect an answer from Dick, nor does he get one at first. There is a long pause before Dick speaks up again.

_"Why?"_

Jason had expected any number of things, but a calm demand for a reason hadn't been among them. "What do you mean why?"

Dick inhales sharply. _"Jesus, Jason, that doesn't just happen. Why did you do it?"_

_Because I'm jealous. Because you always get all the good things. Because I wanted Roy to myself, just this once._

He doesn't say any of it. Dick wouldn't understand, nor does Jason want to be this open with him, not when Dick knows just how to gut him with nothing more than a handful of words. 

"But it did," he whispers. It's the only way he can explain it without hating himself for being vindictive, for wedging the knife deeper. He could have just not called and let Roy handle this mess. But he had a hand in it too and couldn't wait for Roy to gather the courage to bring it up on his own.

"Let me guess." Dick sounds bitter now. "There was alcohol involved."

"Yes," Jason admits, and is glad for the vagueness of that statement. That way, he doesn't have to lie about his own state of sobriety at the time.

He may have been the faintest bit tipsy when it happened, but Roy had been flat-out drunk. Something must have been up for him to go on such a bender while they were out pub-crawling. Jason didn't ask; he figured he'd gotten into a fight with Dick again. It's usually about his drinking, which makes Roy drink all the more the minute he's out of eyesight.

Jason had dragged his sorry ass home, sensing that Roy would never forgive him if he left him in Dick's care. He'd planned to just dump him on the sofa, but Roy had held on to Jason and insisted he stay awhile. Jason had grudgingly agreed, not without a fair bit of eye-rolling that Roy didn't even appreciate, and turned on the TV to have something to focus on other than the solid warmth of Roy's body collapsed against his own or his soft breathing tickling his neck.

It didn't really work. Jason's heart pounded every time Roy so much as shifted. He couldn't help the annoying ache in his chest. Nor could he help his fingers playing with Roy's hair. He wonders if that was what did it.

Jason was nothing but tension when Roy nosed up his neck and his jaw, but still he couldn't help tilting his head to welcome Roy's lips against his own.

It was innocent at first, or so he told himself, because how could it ever be innocent when it was his best friend kissing him? His best friend who was in a relationship with the golden child of the family, the person Jason had tried and failed to live up to. The person he could never reach. The person who had everything Jason wanted, and didn't even know how fucking lucky they were.

So when Roy kissed him, Jason swallowed down the ugly thoughts that told him this was wrong, that he didn't deserve it, that Roy was probably thinking of Dick right then – because why else would he be kissing Jason, right?

Why pick Jason when you already had Dick?

It should have ended there, Jason was sure it would, although he was determined to savor it for as long as it lasted. It was his one and only chance to be closer to Roy than he'd ever dreamed possible and his heart was tearing itself to pieces. They shouldn't, he kept thinking faintly, but then Roy's tongue finally stopped teasing and slid inside Jason's mouth and Jason was melting, along with his nagging doubts.

Jason couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by it all. He _wanted_ this, wanted Roy's attention all for himself, wanted his hands smoothing over his sides, wanted them stealing beneath his shirt, even if that marked the end of any kind of pretense of innocence he'd still been clinging to by that point.

He wanted _Roy,_ and he didn't care what kind of asshole that made him.

 _"I see,"_ Dick says finally. Jason can't read his tone at all. _"That's your big excuse? Alcohol clouding your judgment?"_

"No, there is no excuse." Jason had walked into this with both eyes open, knowing what a shitstorm this would unleash. But he didn't care. For once in his life he wanted to have something good, even if it meant hurting his best friend and the person he's looked up to for years, even if it meant hurting himself, because the truth is that Jason can't have anything good without suffering for it. "But I _am_ sorry."

_"Fat lot of good that does now."_

"It's the truth."

The truth is that he wanted to hurt Dick. That he wanted to take something away from him, something that made him happy, because Jason can't stand to see Dick happy when he is not. Dick has always had everything, and everyone loves him.

He's not proud of his envy.

But he also can't deny that he is _gloating_ to hear Dick struggle to contain his feelings, even as he's feeling sick of himself.

"I just... thought you'd want to know."

"Fuck _you,"_ Dick says with sneering emphasis. _"You're enjoying this, aren't you? That's why you called: to rub it in, isn't it?"_

A sudden shock of heat flashes through Jason, as if a spotlight was burning down on him. "I'm sorry."

 _"Spare me,"_ Dick hisses, _"I don't want to hear it anymore. You got what you wanted. Hope you're happy now."_

He hangs up, and a part of Jason is relieved he doesn't have to keep up the charade anymore. Yes, he's sorry, but he's also not.

That's the worst of it.

Jason stares off into the middle distance for what feels like hours before lowering the phone. He throws it on the trail of clothes they left on the floor last night.

Next to him, Roy groans.

"I feel like shit."

"Tell me about it."

Jason scoots back and sits up against the wall, looking down at Roy. He'd rather curl up against him, wind his arms around his chest and kiss his shoulder, his neck, his ear, but it's not his place. Not after what he's done.

Roy stares up at Jason for so long that Jason begins to wonder whether he's trying to form a sentence in his mind or whether he needs a bucket.

"Why'd you have to tell him?" he asks finally, shielding his eyes.

Something catches in Jason's throat, but he fights through it. "So you wouldn't have to."

"Fuck, Jason," he breathes out and Jason can't tell if he's cursing him the same way Dick was or if it's more an expression of how he's feeling. "I can't deal with this right now."

Jason says nothing. He'd considered letting it all play out. Perhaps Roy would have woken not remembering anything and they could have pretended it never happened. No one had to be the wiser. Perhaps Roy could have gone back to Dick and nothing would have had to change.

But Jason didn't want to live with this guilt alone. He fucked up, okay, but he didn't fuck up by himself. If Roy didn't want him, he wouldn't have kissed him in the first place, wouldn't have touched him and kept going.

It's as Dick said, this doesn't just happen.

You don't accidentally finger someone open until they're begging you to take them. You don't whisper filth into their ear if it didn't turn you on as well. You don't fuck them like you mean it only to pretend it wasn't what you needed after all.

So maybe it had been a stupid idea to act on his feelings for Roy, and maybe the fallout wasn't worth the experience, but he wouldn't be carrying this alone. Couldn't. He doesn't _want_ Roy to forget or to go back to the way it was before. He needs him to own up to this.

If he has to be a mistake Roy made, at least he wants him to be conscious about it. He wants it to have been real, even if it hurts.

Even if their friendship won't survive this, which Jason is sure it won't, one way or another.

Even if Dick will never forgive him.

"Pretty sure we fucked up royally this time," he says, trying to poke a hole into the wall he feels between them.

"It's in the name," Roy mutters.

Hearing the bone-deep exhaustion in his voice makes Jason want to go back on his word and reassure him that nothing has to change between them. That they can fix this.

He feels the lie curdle on his tongue the moment he thinks it.

Even if he could stand to watch Roy mend things with Dick, he couldn't be around Roy anymore without wanting to do it again, fully sober this time.

"I'm not sorry," Jason says before he can really think about the significance of his words.

"Good for you," Roy deadpans. "That makes one of us."

Jason ignores the sting. "Don't get me wrong. I'm sorry about the timing and the circumstance and that it's causing you pain right now, but I'm not sorry about the fact that it did happen."

Roy groans, face hidden under his palm again. "Next thing you're going to tell me is that this has been long in coming."

"What if it has?"

"Fuck you. I said I can't deal with this right now." Roy heaves himself upright and plants his feet onto the floor. He scrubs his hands over his face and speaks with his back turned to Jason. "I don't know what you're hoping to achieve by telling me this. Maybe in your world this all ends up with us living happily ever after, but goddamnit, Jason. You just took away my one chance to apologize to Dick myself. The next time I see him – if he even lets me see him, that is – he'll already have made up his mind about me and nothing I say will matter. Because you had to tell him yourself. And why? Because you were hoping that if he breaks up with me I can stay with you? Is that it?"

Jason thought he'd been ready for those words. He'd expected Dick to slice Jason to ribbons with them, but hearing them come out of Roy's mouth hurts worse than anything that Jason could have imagined.

"I'm going to be sick," Roy says as he totters toward the bathroom.

Normally, Jason would have offered a shoulder to support Roy in his hungover, but even if Jason had been able to move, Roy would not have accepted it. All Jason can do is stare at Roy's freckled back and wonder if making a mess of things counts as a superpower. If so, he'd like an inhibitor collar to stop himself from making it even worse.

Jason puts on some pants before he straightens up the bed and gathers their clothes up off the floor. Folding them into neat piles isn't as soothing as it used to be.

When he tries out the bathroom door, it opens to a view of Roy curled over the toilet bowl. Jason remembers similar scenes, when he didn't hesitate to crack a joke or hold Roy's hair out of his face when he was spewing up his insides. He's never seen him so pathetically pale and miserable before, however, but then again, he's never seen him this naked either.

"Fucking leave me alone," Roy mutters when he notices Jason behind him, careful not to turn around.

"Just want to make sure you're not drowning yourself."

"I'm not. Satisfied?" Roy's hands are coiled into fists, as if he's trying hard to keep together. To keep himself from punching Jason. "Now, can I have some privacy, _please?"_

Jason drops Roy's clothes next to him on the floor and drapes a blanket over Roy's shoulders. Some things never change. "I'll be around if you need anything."

"You've done enough," Roy says but hugs the blanket tighter around himself.

Jason feels his own anger clamp around him like a vice. He's trying to extend an olive branch here and Roy keeps slapping it away. Perhaps he should have listened to him when he said he couldn't talk about this now, instead of pushing the issue.

He crosses his arms.

"Don't put this all on me, Roy. You're making it sound like you had no choice in the matter, when you were the one who initiated it."

"You could have stopped me." Roy is still not looking at him. "You _should_ have stopped me."

"Yeah, maybe. Maybe I should have done a million other things different in my life, but I didn't. And we both have to live with that now."

Jason knows he sounds like a callous jackass – he's had a great mentor and years of practice – but it's not what Roy needs now. Hell, it's not what Jason needs either, because he feels wounded and vulnerable and wants nothing more than to sink to the floor next to Roy, wrap his arms around him and stop pretending to be such a tough guy.

But Roy has made it abundantly clear he doesn't want Jason around. It stings, but he owes it to Roy to give him some space. And to himself too. 

So despite his better judgment that tells him Roy shouldn't be alone right now, Jason turns around without another word and closes the door behind him.

If there's anything left to salvage between them, they'll need to cool their heads first before they can start sifting through the ashes of what they burned down last night. Jason hopes they can find something that survived the fallout of this dumb decision, but he's not going to hold his breath.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Think Twice" by Eve 6.
> 
> Ending the year with heartbreak and starting it with heartbreak. I'm living my best life, y'all.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ['Til It Bleeds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17686637) by [LuthienLuinwe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuthienLuinwe/pseuds/LuthienLuinwe)




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